Silicon Valley Is Still The Place To Be

264

In Bay Area, there’s none. That’s why i go back to hk twice a year =), in here is basically which cafe’s which dish is more eatable . But even then, a lot of inconsistency, one time you go eat maybe decent but another day taste like POS

ABC - their hainan chicken used to be good(chicken taste if you know what i mean) but not sure what happen since last year, quality went down, still okay but not as good as before, might be due to minimum wage increase they have to cut back.

Smile house cafe in Taraval - Biggest Fraud ever. Menu = more modern Hong Kong style cafe. copied the menu but taste like shxt…

Skyline cafe - the one you mention in ranch 99. food as expected so so. But price is super cheap.

cafe mario in san bruno - cutlet pork , black pepper pork okay, super cheap, very old, but my wife likes these two dish from them.

chinese bbq pork/duck -
sunset irving Lam Hoa Thuan - gwai fei yellow hair chicken taste great. other bbq pork and duck are also okay
cheung hing - overrated POS , especially the millbrae one. even you give me money i would not go there, one time i have jury duty in ssf, went there for a quick lunch, damn these bbq pork fried so hard is like eating a real rock
mr. fong daly city - bbq used to be pretty good. but not sure what happen last couple months, hope they’ll get their stuff back together.
porridge king - bbq stuff not bad, consistent.

Summary: want to eat good any kind of chinese food, go to Hong Kong/ GuangZhou…Man… I can’t wait for my november trip now…

sushi - i recommend amami in san bruno regarding price/quality
there’s other eatable chinese food in millbrae, you guys probably know those… so i won’t make too much comment.

1 Like
265

Dude that’s depressing… These cheap cafes are the cheapest and most common restaurants in Hong Kong. Pretty much every street has one. In South Bay there are also no good options. I thought SF would be better. Damn not.

One time I ordered some spaghetti in Skyline cafe. It’s cheap but tastes like shit. Will never go again.

Porridge King is not too bad, but not too good either. It’s some place you don’t remember what the food tastes like.

I will try out Cafe Mario. Thanks for the tips!

266

Forgot to mention this one:

On Ocean Ave. Super, super awful. And yet it has 3.5 stars on Yelp. Proof again Yelp is POS when it comes to Chinese food. I won’t eat there even if you paid me to. I was surprised something this bad can survive in SF. Foodie town my ass.

Ming Kee across the street has pretty great roast ducks and other BBQ stuff.

There are quite a few good BBQ shops in SF. I have to admit South Bay doesn’t have that many. There’s another one on San Bruno Ave that’s good.

The best “gwai fei yellow hair chicken” is in San Jose East Lake. Their free soup is better than the soup you paid 20 bucks for in other restaurants. Man, I can still taste that in my mouth… :cry:

267

A lot of cafe quality went down a lot because they have to cut cost/labor … i especially notice it last 2 years. And you know they can’t raise the price much. northbay/southbay pretty much the same.
And last year a few cafe got shutdown due to health cleaniness BS from the city. ABC closes down for like 2 months and the one in richmond permanently closes down.

Cafe mario always empty and not much people realize it exist, maybe too old. But same as many hk cafe, not everything is eatable. Their porridge is horrible(like water) and a few dish is not good either.
But it’s ridiculously cheap and i don’t know how they can stay in business.

There’s a lot of northern chinese food in millbrae not bad , if you like spicy. and dim sum place too.
See that’s why i like DC and San bruno, close to sunset and millbrae.
cooking papa in foster city is alrite i remember but i think it’s too greasy and haven’t been there for quite some time, not sure if they changed. papa in southbay sucks though(no wok hey at all)

But if you wife cooks good, north bay is great in groceries shopping, vege are fresh(means she doens’t have to throw away over half of the bag). and variety of fish too in sunset(live).

268

Cafe Orchid in Millbrae is better than ABC IMO. Their french toast and baked pork chop over rice are pretty good.

269

Awesome! Baked pork chop is one of my favorites. Will try it out.

Just checked their Yelp score. 3 stars. Perfect. If it’s too high I will be suspicious…

I will be home alone for 3 weeks in July. I plan to try out as many HK style cafes in the area as humanly possible. Already ID’ed a couple. Will add Orchid to the roster.

270

I like T-28
https://yelp.to/qTKq/3yp4bUvCfD
"Macau small flying elephant" I think Macau is close enough to HK :blush:. Try it and let me know.

1 Like
271

God, I take the L that goes right by this place and it is always pretty empty or closed. You sure it is good?

272

My wife makes great bake porkchop, better than ALL those bs cafe out there. Many of those don’t even have the right ingredient, no cheese, no fried egg mix with the rice etc…
cafe orchid like all other hk cafe, some okay, some not, and some inconsistency.

1 Like
273

Come on, Cafe Bakery used to be pretty decent, no???

274

Ok. Will try T-28. Solid 3 stars.

275

HK bistro in mountain view, once in a while it’s pretty good. especially lemon tea.
But i found like 3/5 times stuff there is not good
Like the simple dish fried beef noodle. once in a while the cook has wok hey and use good beef, but many times it suck. depending on your luck.
But the lemon tea there is pretty consistent.

276

Geez, I would love to be your kid. Come on, Dad, that C I got in Quantum Physics equates to your 3 stars, AVERAGE, which in your mind is AWESOME right? Why shoot for an A or 5 stars??? Unbelievable…

277

dude, there’s really no good HK cafe in bay area… 3 is acceptable , And depending on your luck too on that day.

278

I’ve been to HK bistro a few times. It’s ok. Nothing memorable. Same with all the better HK cafes I’ve been to here. If it’s not a disaster like that shitty jojo I have learned not to complain too much.

Anything 4 star or more is bad for Chinese food. I learned it the hard way.

279

Strategy is to pick the dish you know is decent and luck plays a big role.

280

OMG I love baked pork chop over rice…

281

I don’t know anyone who makes baked pork chop at home. Nobody. Looks like @dioworld is a lucky b**tard…

282

Most problem with the hk style cafe here with bake pork is that they aren’t able to get real fresh pork And also many of them are skipping ingredients, works. No fried rice, no cheese, well i guess cutting cost.

there’s a small market in sunset tarval near i think 21 or 22, right next to walgreen, in the morning saturday around 11-12, they have fresh pork coming in. And price is decent too if anyone interested.

283

Cafe Bakery on Noriega is 3.5 stars. According to our Fearless Leader that should be equivalent to 2 Michelin Stars… oh yes, baked pork chop is mentioned in 20+ reviews…